Breaking In

Check out some great work from Lindsay White Funk.

What kinds of portfolios get your attention these days? What brings in an industrial designer for an interview?

I like portfolios that show the entire creative process and tell a story. I don’t just want to see sketches of shoes and a pretty rendering of a final design. I want to know what is the brief, who is the consumer, what type of trend research did you do, what trends did you pick up on, and how those trends are incorporated into your design.

Having some written information is nice, but I want to see all these things represented visually. Show images of the consumer and mood boards for trend research. I also want to see any work you did with color and material stories. Mix all of these things with the standard sketches and renderings and you’ll have a really nice project to show in your portfolio.

I also like when designers inject a little bit of their personality or humor into their portfolios. Nothing gimmicky or overdone, but something that will be memorable. Design should be fun and creative, so don’t be afraid to have a little fun with it.

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Vans Palisades

Lindsay White Funk is a thoughtful and accomplished designer who has been working in the field of industrial design for over 12 years. Growing up in Ohio, she had a love of art, but didn’t discover the field of industrial design until she started studying at the University of Cincinnati’s prestigious College of Design (DAAP). Throughout her design career, she has designed a variety of products including watches, footwear, point of purchase, trade show exhibits, and large scale graphics. Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Ziba Design.

What kinds of portfolios get your attention these days? What brings in an industrial designer for an interview?

PB: I think one of the key things for us when we’re looking at portfolios is designers who are storytellers. We are looking for designers who aren’t just showing the same process over again, we are looking for designers who can tell different types of stories in their portfolios. That can be lots of different things. It could be the journey of the project or the theory. It could be a beautiful consumer story that resonates with the target they’ve chosen. What catches our eye is when they have different tastes, when they’ve explored different things. That the designer is aware of the multiple stories they’re telling while also telling a story about themselves.

SV: I look for someone who can define and articulate a problem very clearly. What gets me is when somebody talks for a half an hour about a problem that’s so simple. That usually means they don’t know what it is. So, what is the problem? What is the solution, and how did you get there? I want to look at the thinking process and how you solved the problem. Framing the problem and having the ability to solve it. People show me their portfolios all the time and ask me if it’s good or not, and I say “There’s no good or bad design, there’s only right design,” meaning it’s the right solution to the problem.

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Expectations and Empathy: The Future of Product Design from Ziba Design on Vimeo.

Sohrab Vossoughi is Ziba’s founder, president and chief creative director. During his 29-year tenure, Sohrab has received numerous accolades that include being named one of the five innovation gurus in the US by Business Week magazine, elected as a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum and serving as an elected advisor to the Hong Kong Productivity Council since 1998. He holds more than 40 patents. Sohrab speaks internationally and regularly contributes to Fast Company, Harvard Business Journal and Rotman’s business journal. Continue reading →

Check out our profile on Daniel Tomicic.

As an art historian with a penchant for automobiles and transportation design, what trends have you noticed over the years as the industry evolves to meet new challenges?

Latest trend is a car designed by an online community. Automotive industry follows potential buyers online and gets them involved in creation process of the new product. Instead of doing research of what people would like to get out of a car and then trying to create a product to suit them, potential buyers today get involved in the very process of creation. We already saw this in the fashion industry and now Local Motors and Marussia are offering cars created in this way. Big manufacturers have to follow this trend soon. On stylistic level, there are a lot of trends like smaller headlights, “bell-bottoms,” in-car timepieces, horizontal “lip-chin creases,” etc.

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Art Historian specialised in automotive design and culture, Daniel Tomicic is a Lifestyle entrepreneur, event organizer, writer and designer. Tomicic is the Principal behind Scuderia Zagreb,  as well as Auto(r), the largest automotive design conference in Europe, Tour of Istria for classic cars and Zagreb Design Week. In 2012 he revived Sljeme Autokoffer, 93 years old malletier atelier.

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Check out some great work from Mugendi M’Rithaa.

I’m curious what has inspired you to pursue industrial design and where your interest in industrial design came about?

I was in the United States at some point in my early childhood for four years, and during that time design in America was arguably the most technologically advanced anywhere and a stimulating environment to be in. My dad was doing his doctorate in pharmacy there at the time—so that was my first real exposure to technology and the world of manufactured products. I remember as a child wondering how someone, somewhere sat down and actually conceived the equipment, and the products that actually made the lunar mission possible—that is really where my fascination with design really began. Consequently, when we returned to Kenya, I eventually ended up opting to undertake an undergraduate degree program in design at the University of Nairobi.

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Professor Mugendi M’Rithaa is an industrial designer, educator and researcher at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. He holds postgraduate qualifications in Industrial Design, Higher Education, and Universal Design. He is passionate about various expressions of socially (responsive and) responsible design, including Participatory Design, Universal Design, and Design for Sustainability. Mugendi has a special interest in the pivotal role of design in advancing the developmental agenda on the African continent.

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Check out some great work from the MFA Advanced Product Design students of Thomas Degn.

AH: Industrial design is such a broad field with many options. How would you suggest students best prepare their portfolios for the jobs they want? How should a portfolio for someone applying to a design consultancy such as frog be different from a portfolio for someone applying for an in-house design position?

TD: Even though most of the designers’ skill sets are necessary both in-house and at a consultancy, I do believe that in-house designers should be able to display a higher level of consistency in understanding of brand values and the importance of research, continued development, and refinement of both a brand and its products. On the other side, many design consultancies rely on fast-paced teamwork qualities and designers who can think on their feet and quickly understand their different clients’ needs and generate concepts where the value proposition is clearly defined and understandable, both in text and initial concept visualizations.

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Thomas Degn is a practitioner of industrial design, applied design research and design teaching. Since 2008 he has had the responsibility as the Programme Director for the Masters programme of Advanced Product Design at Umeå Institute of Design (UID). He has studied at the Aarhus School of Architecture and at the Umeå Institute of Design (UID) in the northern part of Sweden, from which he holds an MA in Industrial Design. He’s originally from Jutland, Denmark. Continue reading →